


What Comes After

by striderfvcker



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Anxiety, M/M, chill stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-15
Updated: 2017-02-15
Packaged: 2018-09-24 16:38:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9770696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/striderfvcker/pseuds/striderfvcker
Summary: Taako isn't used to letting himself just... belong somewhere. He's not used to this kind of genuine openness. It makes him nervous.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is p short but I'm not the greatest at making my fluff fics super long! If you see any errors, please lmk.

He doesn’t know how to feel. They’ve been together for… what, six months? A year?

Whatever. 

They’ve been together for a while now, longer than any of his other relationships had ever lasted, and it was all just sort of… disorienting. He found himself fumbling all over himself; his cool, funny façade slipping up so much it was almost embarrassing.

Magnus was just so heartachingly genuine sometimes, it made him fidgety. Made him feel like running.

But he was done with that, he reminded himself as his fingers slipped in between the human’s, curled tight against his warm skin. He wasn’t going to be doing any more running away.

Maybe the most hard-to-believe thing about this whole situation was the fact that Magnus had built them an entire fucking house. That was insane. Sure, it fit his whole folk hero motif, but it was just so over the top. So much. And he knew Magnus had been worried about that, he had seen it in his eyes as he showed him around the place, as he bit his chapped bottom lip and wormed around his main point a million different ways before finally asking, “So, uh, I mean… Do you… Where are you planning on going?”

And Taako had started to say, “Oh, well, you know me. I float on the wind and all that, right? I’ll, maybe, um.” But it had startled him, had made his stomach drop, because he realized he… didn’t know what he’d do next. He didn’t have anything outside of the Bureau and he certainly didn’t think he’d be able to get a new show together. Not with the baggage he still had hanging over his head. The doubts that still curled up, poisonous, in his stomach.

Magnus must’ve seen it, must’ve watched the way he sort of trailed off, eyes a little hazy, mouth drawn up tense as he tried to come up with something, tried to ensure him there was no need for handouts, but then he had one of those big meaty paws of his on Taako’s shoulder and he found the guts to ask, “Would you maybe, like, want to live with me?”

And that was it, right? Maybe Magnus hadn’t built the house for both of them, but the signs that he had were littered all over the place, from the fact that there were two bedrooms (one that went greatly unused) and an immense kitchen to the fucking study in the upstairs. Taako knew damn well that his folksy friend didn’t intend on learning magic any time soon, but he managed to bite his tongue and refrain from teasing. It was sweet. A little presumptive, but it was that hopefulness that kind of endeared him to the other. 

It was so genuine, though. He wasn’t really used to this shit – to the transfer of such unbridled affection without it hidden under seventeen layers of sarcasm and bullshit. He didn’t know what to do, especially at first. Back when Magnus had first shown him around, had carried in his bags, had fumbled around the fact that, “Oh, the uh, kitchen’s pretty big if you’re like. Interested in that.” And the concern in his voice, the slight push that, “hey, it’s okay. You’re safe here. You’ve never done anything I can’t forgive.” Made his heart skip and his brain scream “RUN.”

He’d never really been in a situation where someone actually, really cared about his safety and his happiness and it made his chest ache. Certainly, people at the BoB had been nice, had probably actually given quite a lot of time to worrying over him, but… That was easier to ignore. Easier to push aside and run off to his room, to be quiet, to count his gold pieces and his finery. He was still looking out for number one, and that was the most important thing. Protecting himself was crucial.

But things had kept on getting complicated back there, people had continued to make themselves important to him, continued to convince him to be vulnerable and it. It was sort of an experience he had to adjust to.

Now, he was settled in with one of the people that he’d grown closest to (someone who knew things about him that nobody else did, someone who’d gone to the edge of death and back a million times over by his side) and… And maybe it was okay. Maybe he could be vulnerable here, in this moment, safe in the warm, cozy little place that Magnus had made for him. For them.

He exhaled, drew a few deep breaths, tried to quell the irrational panic in his head as he leaned into Magnus’s firm side. The other man raised an eyebrow and curled an arm around the elf’s shoulders, “What’s up, my man?” He asked, setting down the little wooden figure he’d been idly carving.

“Don’t sweat it, dude. Nothing serious.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, thanks for reading!!! If you liked this, my tumblr is --> striderfvcker.tumblr.com. 
> 
> If you want to read the real unsavory gross stuff I've written, that's all on this account: (most of it is 18+ so please read the tags and use good judgement!) http://archiveofourown.org/users/NoraPenblood/pseuds/Slim%20Shady


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